Everyone loves airships in their games, for reasons that don't

>>50392179
First you're going to have to tell us how much your airship costs.

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It would depend on how commonplace they were -- the infrastructure and wealth needed to keep up a fleet would no doubt be impressive. Assuming it was possible in a given fantasy world, it would give the nation/guild/adventurer's group a considerable advantage in military power and transportation.

Examples from history would be the Dutch East India Company and the innovations in hull design, sail design, food preservation, navigation (like the whole story about longitudinal navigation) and finally getting a slew of underwriters to insure the voyages, resulted in an incredibly lucrative ocean-trade. India became part of the British Empire. Spain became silly rich (all those gold-leaf covered halls) and the New World came under the power of the Old World. The Caribbean and its sugar became such a fountain of wealth and influence that the British Parliament was directly under its control.

Anyway, if I were running Pathfinder or D&D5e I'd bring in airships as an introductory technology, with tremendous risks involved -- like 16th century exploration, for example. Lots of room for expansion....very exciting...lots of potential wealth...but you stand a good chance of not coming back. Good luck.

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I'd like to imagine a world like Pathfinder: a few very rich kingdoms or city states (like Korvosa) might invest in this emerging innovation -- a few flying vessels might be just what is needed to avoid pirate fleets in certain trade regions, but will come under unique dangers requiring specialized individuals to see them through.
>Oh no! One of our most important shipments has been lost in a very dangerous region! Who can we get to rescue this shipment/diplomat/princess and get the ship flying again to its destination before the shipment of diplomat/princesses falls into the wrong hands...?!!

or

>The wreckage of a flying ship has been discovered high in the mountains. Find out what cargo was on board and any logbooks you can find. This unlikely shipwreck could point the way to some old forgotten mysteries related to ancestors of our current rulers. We don't want this to fall into the wrong hands.

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>>50392179
>But how would airships(flying based on magic, handwavium, or hot air) impact society and the economy of a late medieval world?
The discovery of new continents and peoples pretty much shook the foundations of European Christianity, who (by and large) had assumed that the Bible was a complete historical record of humanity.

To turn this into a practical game hook, imagine airships being able to access a very remote region (over a rough ocean or beyond some dangerous wilderness) and they discover a long-lost civilization that was more advanced than previous civilizations, and whose historical records contain specific records of the lives and deeds of individuals who just so happen to coincide with the names of current deities in your present society -- your gods were mortals, in other words, and everything you assumed good and true may be a lie.

Economy? Airships can sail over the nearby mountains and bring home cheap wool that totally ruins the local sheep farmers income. They stop being sheep farmers and become traveling merchants. Whole towns disappear. Local lords have much, much less influence due to their decreased wealth (less tax revenue) and wars break out as power shifts. (other lords seek to absorb the lands of the weakened lords). Good times. All because some wizard decided to summon some air elementals and cast a few levitate spells.
>Wizards. No sense of right and wrong.

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Here's another one for you: Innovation sometimes leads to discoveries of "Oh! THAT'S why not!" as in "Why haven't we thought of this before?" and the answer is "Because chaos, calamity and death."

>Local wizard gains levels. "I want to build an airship, lol."
>One old man in the town says "It is not a good idea, for reasons I cannot remember."
>Wizard laughs and -- no sense of right and wrong.jpg
>Ship is built. Flies around. Town holds a festival in celebration.
>Apex flying predators of the time (i.e. dragons) discover humans flying around
>Ass kicking ensues
>Town: Oh, that's why not.
>Old Man: "I just remembered we had an ancient covenant with the dragons to never take to the skies."
>Ancient covenant broken, war between dragons and humanity begins anew.
>humans don't remember, dragons never forgot
>adventurers needed to go to [remote location] to recover [ancient book] that tells the tale of how the dragons were appeased in the first place.
>AP book 1, adventure 1. "Why People Don't Fly" $12.95

>>50392179
It really depends on what you want to be the capacity of these airships; remember, hot-air balloons have been around since 16th century.
They've made some impact for mapping and scouting, and even exploring, but they've never become viable transportation of commodities, because they required an infrastructure of refueling pressurized gases, and because of their physical limitations.
We are entirely capable of building them, but even so, shipping or freight-trains are far more efficient.

On the other hand, with magic, they might be more viable.
But in that case, it is entirely up to you to define HOW viable, and thus HOW MUCH they'll impact your world.

>>50392739
Sounds like an asshole DM if the wizard is a player

Give me a airship campaign, please. ;^;

I WANT TO BE A AIR-PIRATE.

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>>50392179
Well, you know how everybody hates weebs that try to impose samurai and ninjas onto a Western fantasy setting?
Well, airships justify those guys.
If medieval Europeans had airships, they would use them to bypass Islamic merchants and trade with Asia directly. That means you'll get Asians and Europeans exchanging technologies and ideas.

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>>50393503
>Empires at war
>Critical moment in the campaigns. You are called to meet the Joint Chiefs of Staff
>"The enemy has magical airships -- two of them to be exact, and they're loaded with some sort of terrible weapon that will [pretty much win them the war]. We've come up with an impossible plan: you adventurers are going to steal one of them, and destroy the other with it."
>risky infiltration mission
>discover double agent - kill
>stealth and subterfuge mission
>steal the ship, destroy the other, make escape!
>lol. third ship. air battle ensues.

>>50393594
YesPlease.

>>50392179
as said, it depends on cost and the dangers of the skies

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>>50393651
>returning ship to your home base - looking forward to victory parade
>double agent had betrayed info: a member of your Joint Chiefs had intended to betray the people and use the airship for oppression
>option: keep the ship
>Commence Piracy Campaign
>Campaign of adventure and heroics as your group becomes a legendary force in the region
>airship technology slowly improves though, and those two warring kingdoms eventually catch up
>Airship Campaign truly begins as more ships arrive on scene
>World has changed, but your group is still in control of a legendary ship. The Dauntless!

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>>50393763
STOP MAKING ME WANT THIS HARDER.

WHY ARE YOU SO HARD ON ME. ;^;

This is next level retarded.

>>50392179

Assuming airships have less carrying capacity than a normal sea vessel, I don't think they would actually have that much of an economical impact. Might make landlocked regions slightly more prosperous and make luxury goods slightly cheaper.

Their biggest effect would be their effect on communication, since they'd allow people and news to travel faster (doubly so on landlocked regions). This might mean that you'd see bigger empire building earlier since it becomes easier for centralized power to control its regions.

Or maybe not. China manages to create a huge ass country without flying ships, so empire building is probably more about the science of administration than it is about airships.

My setting doesn't have airships, but it does have extremely fast landships.

Their presence really colors the entire setting. Things are a lot more metropolitan and "modern", even though nobody has modern weaponry. Cities are much larger, trade is much more important (and frequent), and the world as a whole feels more like something out of the 1920s than medieval. Gangsters might have more power than kings, shady workers smuggle magical drugs, the whole 9 yards.

I'm personally a big fan of it.

Trade probably wouldn't be affected depending on the total carrying capacity or size of the airships, which in being reasonable, would never be able to equal that of a sea vessel.

As others have pointed out, the two things most effected would be communication (and even then, birds may still be more efficient) and warfare.

Whichever military could field more airships would determine the fate of any siege or naval battle. Even with a modest amount of carrying capacity, airships would be able to decimate an enemy fleet or town if they carryied a sizeable incendiary payload.

I highly recommend reading The Grace of Kings to anyone with an interest in airship application in a medieval setting (fantasy China) with an attention to "scientific" (or at least logical) strictures in place, governing the use and physics of such vessels.

>>50394118
>I'm personally a big fan of it.

Of your own setting, you don't say?

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>>50393503
Why?

I'm dead serious, why the fuck does everyone want to be a sky pirate?

How are sky pirates in any way different from sea pirates? You live on a ship, you fight with other ships, and you probably take it up the ass by a dozen other men on the regular.

One's in the sea, the other's in the sky. That's literally the only difference.

I wish the sky pirate meme would fucking die already. Better yet, I wish you would fucking die already.

>>50394335
I can understand that people wishing for an idea to die because it's been around for a while (Has it? I only entered /tg/ like, two days ago)... But my personal reason?

I've never been a pirate. Air, Underwater, or Sea pirate. And I want to play a campaign where I get to RP a pirate, have fun at it, then chalk it down on my bucket list of "Things I've done" and be done with it!

I do apologize if my innocent desire cause you some annoyed suffering, and I do hope you feel better with the vented frustration.

>>50394335
The greater altitude makes everything more exciting; you've never heard of the phrase 'high adventure'?

>>50392739

So, the dragons have instilled a no-fly zone above the kingdom, basically? Sounds American.

>>50394888

>These barbaric humans keep fighting each other
>let's just use our firebreath to down any and all flying humans, that will help them stop fighting

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>>50394118

?

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>>50394335
yeah, who wants to be a sky pirate

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>>50394335

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>>50394335
whoooooo

>>50393881
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5v9nIg58r8
Technically /v/, but you might like it.

http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/Waylight.Waylight.html This is what we did a while ago. Sort of Crimson Skies with fantasy elements.

>>50394335
>sky pirate meme
>meme

You keep using that word...

>>50394321
More a fan of how my game is running as a result of it.

>>50393763
Campaign theme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1LAhY_uRnI

>>50392179
That's a good question OP. I like to play my game settings as fairly realistic not Europe but even I can't resist the Airship.

I think the biggest difference is that every city will become a Harbour city. Even if it ridiculously expensive your see a lot more trade and communications between towns. Your average citizen may never ever see one but will definitely feel the impact.

Even if you keep the rest of the technology mediaeval I still think things feel like the west Indies in the age of sail. You just wouldn't see a feudal society. Merchant would be constantly trading items and goods.

Why hasn't anyone made an airship IRL?

And I don't mean zeppelins and the like, but an ACTUAL airship with a ship hanging underneath the gas bladders.

If I become a billionaire I'm gonna build one

>>50398793
There's that experimental one that looks like a bottom.

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>>50399025
Yeah that thing does show fair bit of promise for what it is, they did manage to drive it into the ground somehow during a test flight though

>>50399025

BUTT

http://mythcreants.com/blog/six-ways-flight-changes-a-fantasy-setting/

found this to be a good read anon

>>50394335

Because it's like sailing, but everywhere. Also, you can explore something different a là Laputa, potentially.

>>50398793

Because we have planes and yachts. More on the point, I think basically rich people don't press for a sky-yacht because engeneering isn't really ready for a comparatevely big airship: zeppelins' interiors weren't particulary huge, and for that money you just can buy a bigass boat.

That being said in my (more or less) hard scifi setting, noble and wealthy people do have them. They're not THAT big in their interiors, let's say they mostly top at the equivalent of perhaps a 35 meter yacht. The problem though is mostly about weight: a "ballroom" in them can be pretty big, but you can't expect to have it full of people, at least not in every situation/at every height in which you fly.
The hardest engeneering trick is the pool, of course.

>>50395012
>>50395031
>>50395047
Been a while since I thought about how actually terrifying and amazing Edge Chronicles was, thanks anon. Gloamglozer is coming for you now

>>50401382
you also fail to account for the security aspect of airships.

If they're not cruising at very high altitude, airships are very prone to attack

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>>50392179
I enjoy using memes to propel my aircraft.

>>50395012
>>50395031
>>50395047
I like you.

>>50394335
>Pirate
In most players' mindsets, this implies freedom from railroading combined with constant opportunities for adventure and conflict. How true this is depends on how well the GM can actually keep them on his plot rails without making it seem distasteful/obvious.

Add to that
>Sky
Implies even greater freedom than the sea, since barring something like a storm or monster forcing you to land, you can effectively have a halfway-decent chance to go literally anywhere that's been mapped out.

It doesn't even necessarily have to be piracy, but "pirate" is what people tend to say when they need a one-word catch-all term for swashbuckling, exploration, that Age of Sail feel, ship-to-ship combat, and long voyages.

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If it's common enough you should be able to move goods and people around rather easely. Like large army deployments and waht not.

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>>50394335
Being un-ironically this plebian....

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So what kind of handwavium do you guys like for your airships?

I'm partial to Hydrium, a nonflammable lifting gas with roughly the same weight as hydrogen. It would allow for much safer airships than hydrogen, and is a pretty easy explanation for why your airship has cannon on it

apologies for the lack of relevant pictures, on mobile

>>50408650
I like engine based ones, so I don't have to worry about big gas containers in design. On that note, I hate when airships look just like seaborne ships but in the sky.

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>>50408650
Literally, wind magic keeps the ship afloat, and can also be used to move it, when natural wind is lacking. Ships can be made hybrid water-air

>>50394118
>My setting doesn't have airships, but it does have extremely fast landships.
Cars

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>>50398793
I can't find any examples in RL but it doesn't seem unlikely.

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>>50398793
for one thing, you'd need to heavily modify a ship for it. The force that would be exerted on the connections between the ship and the balloon would be massive, as the entire weight of the ship would be on a few small points.

plus, dieselpunk airships are way cooler. If I won the lottery, i'd go for one rather than an air ship